Years of significant underfunding, coupled with rising demand and costs for care and support, have combined to push adult social care services to breaking point. Over the past decade, adult social care cost pressures have increased by £8.5 billion and total funding has increased by £2.4 billion. This meant a gap of £6.1 billion needed to be managed. Of this, £4.1 billion was managed through savings to the service, and £2.0 billion was managed through funding diverted from other services by cutting them faster than otherwise would have been the case.
Councils are also facing significant extra costs from the demands created by COVID-19 as well as a significant loss of income. In relation to adult social care, councils are supporting care providers who face additional costs in ensuring continuity of care for those who rely on their support, as well as seeking to protect staff and the people they support from infection by COVID-19, and then providing care to those who fall ill with the virus.
The 2020 ADASS Budget Survey shows that the onset of the pandemic, and the additional financial and demand pressures faced by local authorities as a consequence, has led to a significant change in the Directors’ confidence in meeting their statutory duties relating to adult social care. For the current financial year (2020/21) only 4 per cent of Directors are fully confident that their budget will be sufficient to meet their statutory duties; this compares to 35 per cent in 2019/20.
The Health and Social Care Committee last year called for a £7 billion annual increase in adult social care funding by 2023/24 to cover demographic changes and uplift in staff pay in line with the national minimum wage, as well as funding to protect people who face catastrophic social care costs at a cost of £3.1 billion by 2023/24. LGA analysis, completed before the spending review, estimated an adult social care funding gap rising to £2.7 billion in 2023/24. Costs are considered in terms of core pressures (demography and inflation), the provider market gap (the difference between what providers say is the cost of delivering care and what councils pay), and assumptions are also made about the path of future funding (including council tax and core grant rising in line with inflation). The LGA will be publishing new analysis on the funding gap facing local government later this year.
One of the only positives to come out of COVID-19 is that it has put adult social care firmly in the public, political and media spotlight. It has also shone an important light on the tireless work of our invaluable social care workforce who are providing care and support to all who need it in the most challenging of circumstances. This emergency has begun to highlight the essential value of social care in its own right to the wider public and this debate needs to be harnessed as we think about the future of care and support.
The legacy of COVID-19 for social care – and most importantly the people who use social care services – must be a reset, not simply a restart. This impetus should spur our thinking around long-term reform of care and support, which we have always said should be built on cross-party cooperation. We are committed to working with Government and all parts of the social care world – particularly people with lived experience – on a way forward that is informed by the many valuable lessons from the response to COVID-19 on the role and value of social care in all our lives.
The LGA has published seven principles for reform of adult social care, which chart a way forward for ensuring the very best local care and support in the future, so that people can live their very best life. Several prominent organisations have signed up to these principles.